


Canis Major

by Its_real_for_us



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anticipation, Best Friends, Bisexual Remus Lupin, Boy Love, Embarrassment, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Gay Sirius Black, Hogwarts, House Elves, Love Letters, M/M, Poetry, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:14:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26072488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Its_real_for_us/pseuds/Its_real_for_us
Summary: Remus grabbed a couple of Muggle band-tees Sirius wore on the weekends, a dirty pair of robes, and his favourite pair of leather trousers before adding it in with his clothes. Only a couple of seconds later, the house-elf was back with what seemed like her friends.Holding onto the baskets of clothes, the same elf that had first knocked, took out a small piece of parchment she saw peeking from Sirius' left trouser pocket."Wouldn't want to wash this," she smiled as Remus clutched the note tightly in his hands, already wondering what it could possibly be.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 162





	Canis Major

**Author's Note:**

> Beware, bad poetry down below. It's written by Sirius, so, it couldn't be too well-versed, that would be out of character!

Remus opened the door to his dormitory. He'd just spent the better part of his afternoon locked up in the library tutoring some fifth year Ravenclaw as Madam Pince went on and on about how loud they were being. He was beyond exhausted, both mentally and physically. 

Yawning, Remus looked around his environs with droopy eyes that begged for rest. In a quick turn of the head, from left to right and right to left, he realised he was the only one in their shared bedroom. _Good._

He sighed, dropping his Astronomy and Potions books on his bedside table and stretched. He needed all the students he could get, tutoring would only raise Remus' chances at finding any type of _actual_ job after graduation.

It didn't matter what his mates said. He knew it was going to be difficult for him. It always was for any wizard, or the rare witch, with his condition. Remus needed to take that into consideration. He'd be lucky to even find work in Knockturn Alley of all places, and he was aware of such. 

He couldn't allow himself to screw up any chances that were given to him. Dumbledore had already been kind enough to allow him to study at Hogwarts when, in reality, most would've simply turned a blind eye after knowing of his horrid Lycanthropy. 

Moments passed, the sky was turning a deep shade of grey Remus didn't like as he made a quick effort to loosen his laces and discard himself of the black trainers he'd worn ever since fourth year. Thankfully, he hadn't grown much since, the constant buying of new ones had really been difficult on his family.

 _Yes_ , they'd never been poor, in the first place, but they didn't come from a lot of money either. Even less so, now that his mother spent ridiculous amounts of money on anything that could potentially help her son during his monthly transformations.

Relaxing now on what was his four-post bed, Remus grabbed the novel he'd been reading recently. He slowly licked his index finger and turned to the page where he'd last left off. He smiled slightly. Reading had forever been a great passion of his.

Running through the pages at an impressive speed, Remus read Frankenstein. His dad had always pushed him to, but he'd never given in. He'd had enough of the monster he was already. He hadn't wanted to read of another.

 _Until now, of course._ Now that his father was gone, Remus had to bring himself to read his dad’s favourite book. It only seemed right. As creepy as it was, he had to admit, he understood the fascination of it all, peoples utter obsession with monsters. 

_The thing is, it's much easier when you're an outsider looking in, not an outsider looking out._

Hours passed and passed before Remus realised he was reaching the end of the book. He sighed, _why haven't I read this earlier? I could've- I should've- I would've loved to talk to him about this story._ Remus felt as a bubble of regret heaved in his chest and steadily worked its way up to his throat. He didn't want cry. He hated to. 

He knew very well if he did, he may never stop. But Remus couldn't repress the emotions he always did, and before he knew it, a sole tear streamed down his face. And then, another and another. With his jumper, he rapidly soaked up his cries. _Control yourself._

It had been two years. _I can't spend the rest of my life mourning!_ Remus had to be strong, to focus on his upcoming NEWTs, on the war he wasn't even aware was on the horizon. _Where's one of Sirius fags when you need one?_ He'd never been a smoker, shy in comparison to Padfoot, but now and then, was always nice. 

Remus slid a bookmark in between the last few pages of Frankenstein and set off to find one of his best mate's cigarettes. Rapidly, he opened the first drawer he saw beside Sirius' bed and found a half-opned pack. 

Carefully, Remus took one out, lighter in hand, and sat on the small extent of space by the windowsill. He watched as wisps of silvery grey smoke danced through once-clear air. The colour of the billowed clouds reminded him of the wizard whose bed laid directly across his. Remus held his breath, feeling the mesh of nicotine and lack of oxygen give him a weird type of high Sirius always seemed to love.

 _"If you hold it in, the high's better,"_ he'd said. Remus wondered how it was possible for Sirius to like the feeling of burned lungs and foreshadowed diseases. He wasn't sure if it was just another one of his rebellions of sorts, or if it was, deep down, a lack of care Sirius truly had for his own life.

Remus hoped it wasn't the latter, but he knew him too well. It had to be a mix of it all- Sirius' impulsive Gryffindor nature, his wanting to be everything not-Black, and his insecurities of not feeling good enough he'd forever masked so well.

He sighed again, taking another drag from the fag. This time Remus barely let the smoke enter his lungs before he blew it out, watching the way it seemed to hang in the air like Hogwarts' ghosts on a breeze.

Sitting there, huffing and puffing away, Remus watched as dusk swallowed day. It was strangely beautiful, if not, scary. It reminded him of the moon and the fulls he so desperately wanted to forget. _3 more days of peace. Breathe._

A soft knock hit the doorframe, pulling Remus out of his sad reverie. He turned, stubbing his cigarette to powdered ash and walked over to the door. _Who's?_

"Laundry?" a small voice spoke kindly. A house-elf stood before him.

"Oh, of course," Remus spun around, looking around their dorm. Only his hamper seemed to be full, the others never managed to have their clothes ready for the elves.

He exhaled, _it's always the same thing with them!_ He didn't know whether to laugh or be annoyed. It not like it really mattered. Remus loved his friends, nevertheless.

"S'okay if you come back in two minutes?" The house-elf nodded and left to the next room.

Without much thought, Remus went to James' side first and picked up the clothes surrounding, jamming them all a bit too quickly into the wizard's hamper. After he went over to Peter's bed, which was the furthest away from James', and did the same.

Oddly, he left Sirius for last, who, a bit surprisingly so, had the least amount of dirty clothes. The wizard cared about his appearance, but, all the same, wasn't known to be much of a clean freak either, to say the very least.

Remus grabbed a couple of Muggle band-tees Sirius wore on the weekends, a dirty pair of robes, and Sirius' favourite pair of leather trousers before adding it in with his clothes. Only a couple of seconds later, the house-elf was back with what seemed like her friends. 

Hodling onto the baskets of clothes, the same elf that had first knocked, took out a small piece of parchment she saw peeking from Sirius' left trouser pocket. 

"Wouldn't want to wash this," she smiled as Remus took the note and tightly clutched it into his hands. 

"Thank you," Remus said before closing the door and returning to his bed. He knew he shouldn't look, but he was far too curious. He unfolded the paper and read the words before him in Sirius' uncharacteristically neat handwriting.

_"Forlorn his body rests,_  
_sprawled onto mudded grounds,_  
_the reverberation of his crushed bones_  
_and howls still cling_  
_to the post-silver-coloured-full-air._

_The bookish boy lays across the castle,_  
_engulfed in a blood-soaked blanket,_  
_well-repressed saltwater tears_  
_hidden behind his amber hold._

_Scars sheen in horror,_  
_ill-intended from the part_  
_enslaved to him,_  
_the one more wolf than man._

_I watch hopelessly,_  
_unable to break him free_  
_of this constant suffering_  
_he merits none to endure._

_I care,_  
_despite blood moons,_  
_his unplacatable pre-transitions,_  
_and tawny locks always strewn._

_His eyes, daunt in their nature,_  
_haunt me,_  
_endless in their colours as they stare,_  
_that misconstrue my ministrations_  
_for nothing more than friendship alight._

_Streams flow for the first time in years,_  
_down my cheeks, I know,_  
_if it were I who'd metamorphose,_  
_I'd be long gone,_  
_even without the promise of tomorrows_  
_and a heaven the Blacks believe not._

_He dares to call himself unworthy_  
_of the Lions' roars,_  
_when no coward_  
_could come nigh his courage._

_Other times, he's across from me,_  
_he reads,_  
_entrapped in Muggle novels,_  
_basking in a youth that isn't his own._

_I know he dreams_  
_of a world where his father_  
_hasn't yet gone,_  
_and his mother doesn't dwell on and on._

_I wish he could see_  
_himself through the eyes_  
_of the other Marauders,_  
_through James who knows very well_  
_we'd fall apart without him._

_Through Peter who's aware_  
_he's the smartest of the bunch,_  
_and most importantly through I,_  
_I wonder then,_  
_what he'd perceive himself to be._

_Gashes map his skin_  
_like a network of constellations_  
_on a starry night,_  
_twinkling with memories of bravery._

_I am lost_  
_in those same ever-so-soft flickers_  
_of glimmering celestial bodies,_  
_the ones that flutter_  
_in the same sky as his monthly capturer,_  
_the ones that tie me equally to him._

_I can't deny this attachment I feel,_  
_burning so bright,_  
_I look at his lips and know,_  
_it isn't friendship that makes me want_  
_to breathe the same air as he."_

Remus was bewildered. Every part of him, small or big, was awestruck. It took many moments for him to recover before any coherent thought could even begin to process in his mind.

Slowly, Remus' eyes adjusted to the very little light of the room. When he finally got his bearings, he wondered if it was possible to die from shock alone. _I must've not read correctly, right?_ He could hear his heart pound in his ears, harder than he'd ever felt it prior. 

It wasn't just awe. It was much, much more than that. Remus read the words over and over again, thinking just maybe they'd sink in the more he read them. That wasn't the case. Every time his eyes dragged through a stanza, over poetry he knew not Sirius wrote, he became all the more confused.

These words, they were beautiful in a way that was all-so-Sirius, and they were of him. Remus' mind couldn't wrap itself around that idea. It made utterly no sense, to the wizard.

Remus was just about to read through the poem all over again when he heard a creak, one that could only be coming from the door. He lifted his eyes. There _he_ was. Sirius was standing there, a broad grin spread across his lips.

"Hullo, Moony," he muttered happily. Remus didn't respond, unsure of how to go about this. There was no denying it, the note was in his hands.

"Sirius," Remus voiced, the wizard's usual nickname far gone from his memory, at the moment. "I wasn't trying to, but I found-"

Remus lifted the piece of parchment paper, turning the poem to his view. Sirius blanched instantly, his expression falling into one of nervousness and, what seemed to be, fear.

"I was giving the elves laundry, and one of them saw this and gave it to me so it wouldn't get washed. I shouldn't have opened it. I- I'm sorry."

"R- Remus." Sirius found his breath. "I'm the one that's sorry. I didn't want you to see that. I should've been more careful at hiding it." He went over and tried to snatch the paper from Remus' hands, but Remus was far too quick on his feet and moved away.

"Wait, is it true?" Remus was still dumbfounded. He couldn't believe it. He had to hear it from Sirius himself. It had to be a hoax, some well-thought-out plan James and he had mastered together to make him look like a fool.

"Of course it's bloody true!" Sirius seemed almost angry now. "You think I just write love poems about anybody, Moony?"

"I didn't- I- I don't," Remus paused and tried again. "You just- You can't like me," Remus admitted.

"I can't?" Sirius spat. "Well, I do." Remus watched as Sirius' Adam's apple bobbed in his throat. _He's never anxious. He's Sirius Black!_

"Stop," Remus whispered. 

"What, you think I want this? I want to be in love with my best mate?"

"In love?" Remus couldn't breathe again, all his air caught in his throat.

"You know, you can be so fucking daft sometimes, Remus!"

"But I'm-" 

"But you're what?"

"You're wrong to love me."

"You don't think I know everything you're about to say? You're a werewolf. I know that," Sirius hissed. "Don't tell me I'm wrong to love you because you can't see any good in yourself. I know you don't feel-" 

"This isn't a joke, right?" Remus had to ask again. "Are you sure you're serious?"

"I'm always Sirius," Sirius laughed as if that joke hadn't gotten old long, long ago. 

"You're sure?" Remus got closer; _"I can't deny this attachment I feel."_

"Moony, of course," Sirius murmured. There was barely any distance between them now. _"I look at his lips and know, it isn't friendship that makes me want to breathe the same air as he."_ The words from Sirius' poem resonated in Remus' ears. 

Now certain, Remus closed the remaining space between them. He never thought this would happen. It felt all so surreal and real, all at once. Their foreheads touched right before their lips finally brushed together for the first time.

Suddenly, Remus understood Sirius' words. _"I am lost in those same ever-so-soft flickers of glimmering celestial bodies, the ones that flutter in the same sky as his monthly capturer, the ones that tie me equally to him."_

Like Sirius, the brightest star visible from anywhere on Earth, in the constellation Canis Major, Remus could only feel bright, _"burning so bright"_ , when he was around Sirius. The darkness seemed to cease into yesterday's worries in Siri's presence. 

Moony, basking in this moment of utter bliss and pleasure, deepened the kiss as the world fell away, tracing his fingers down Sirius' spine as he brought the wizard even closer to him. 

Remus was finally getting everything he'd ever desired. The world might have taken so much from him, given him hell, but right now, _right here_ , even with a full approaching and a war he knew not of, he couldn't be happier.

**_Fin._ **

**Author's Note:**

> Please kudos & comment! It makes a huge difference!!! ♡


End file.
